


Welkin

by Ollieshark



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Body Horror, Corrupted Steven Universe, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I don't know what I'm doing, Mental Health Issues, Not Beta Read, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spoilers, Steven Universe (Cartoon) Spoilers, Steven Universe Future Spoilers, Steven Universe Needs Therapy, aspec steven, i just really wanted to write a corrupted steven fic, not canon compliant past growing pains, steeb WILL get therapy and a hug eventually i promise, will update tags as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:27:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23274733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ollieshark/pseuds/Ollieshark
Summary: Steven Q. C. D. D. Universe has far exceeded the gems' expectations for him. He saved the world, dismantled an empire, and redirected all the lost and wandering gems to a safe place to recover. But he's having trouble doing that for himself. He's finally starting to open up about his swirling thoughts, but like his father said, he can't fix all his problems overnight.(my hand is currently a little messed up and typing has become rather uncomfortable as a result. i'm still working on this fic, but i have to chip away at chapters a little every day to keep my hand happy for the time being.)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 131





	1. Stormy Sky

**Author's Note:**

> So I haven't written a fanfiction since I was thirteen. Please be kind! I am unsure how dark this fic will become, but I will provide necessary content warnings for each chapter. If there's something you would like tagged that isn't, please let me know!
> 
> A blanket anxiety, PTSD, and mental health issues warning on the whole work.
> 
> Do NOT repost my work, and please do not buy it on a third party app! My work is meant to be enjoyed freely. I am NOT posting this work anywhere else. If you see it on other websites, please let me know!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven has a much-needed conversation with Connie.

A mug of hot cocoa had grown cold overnight on Steven’s bedside table. It was mostly backwash by now--hot cocoa stopped being as delicious when it sat out too long, after all. The marshmallows floating atop it had brightened Steven’s sky a little when he saw them drifting along. Though his day had been unnerving . . . frightening . . . he had gone to bed feeling a little better than when he’d woken up that morning.

His father was right. He couldn’t fix his problems overnight. And the grow-shrink-grow debacle in Dr. Maheswaran’s office was just humiliating enough to push Steven to want to get better. He didn’t want to repeat the incident but even worse somewhere else. But he knew, just like with saving the universe, the skies would likely stay stormy before they cleared. If the seas below didn’t get rougher first.

Steven still didn’t have quite enough spoons to leave the house after the past week, but he got dressed anyway. Too cold for his flip-flops, so he grabbed his colorful sneakers (that Connie insisted evoked the postmodern artistic movement) instead. A puffer jacket and hat to cover his ears. He felt like a marshmallow cloud dressed like this, childish and too big yet so far away that he appeared small in the sky.

Steven _was_ small, though. He’d felt so big when he was younger, fighting and fulfilling a destiny he didn’t fully comprehend. Now that his destiny was complete, his mother’s legacy tainted and altered, an entire empire dismantled because of him, he was floating on by as if he couldn’t control his descent anymore. He didn’t want to be stuck peering down at his home from a mile away anymore.

Before he left, he rummaged in a kitchen drawer for a notepad and pencil. Steven had been especially forgetful lately and had become dependent on to-do lists. Almost all of them lay forgotten in another drawer in his bedside table with only one task crossed off--and that was if the list was lucky. Steven wasn’t sure how much of this he could reasonably conquer today, but he wrote down everything he could think of that needed doing before the thoughts could overwhelm him and fly out of his head.

He glanced over the lavender and periwnkle list, tasks written squished in the margins, and smiled to himself. His eyes landed on the first, and his lungs couldn’t help but constrict at seeing her name. _Apologize to Connie and her mom_. A spike of panic lanced through him as he watched his hands turn pink. For a second, he considered throwing the new list in with the others and letting himself rot in his underwear on his bed.

 _But she’ll understand_ , Steven told himself. He knew Connie better now than he probably ever had, after all the training and harrowing adventures they had together. Even though her mind was also floating away, across the country, to the University of Jayhawk. _She’ll understand; she’ll understand._

Steven took a deep, grounding breath, and the pink glow faded. “Connie will understand.”

He tucked the list in his pocket and headed out the door before he could lose his nerve.

Lion was not immediately visible on the beach, so Steven went back inside and grabbed the keys to the Dondai. He stared at his phone while he floated down to the beach below the temple. Should he text Connie? She might not see it until he was already at her house. But he didn’t want to interrupt her studying with a call.

Steven put his feet on autopilot while he deliberated how to contact Connie, nose buried in his phone. Did he even need to contact her beforehand at all? He could just float up to her window on a break and knock. But would that be too romantic of a gesture? Did Connie feel even remotely the same about him as he did her? Was he even certain it was love at all? Should he just not try at all? Let the wound between them heal with time apart? He didn’t want to make this chasm any wider. But maybe letting it alone would make it fester instead--

He stopped next to the Dondai, parked just on the edge of the pavement. He looked up and flinched when he caught his reflection in the window. Pink again. He hadn’t even noticed it this time.

Steven rested his head against the window with a thump. The iciness soothed his hot, addled brain, contracted the fear of truly, finally losing Connie until it was only a speck of black mold in the corner. He peered at his phone and made a decision.

Connie’s greeting was at once a balm and an irritant to his soul. He really didn’t want to be pink for a third time in ten minutes--he felt his heartbeat speeding up again--so he took a deep breath and just launched into it. “Can I come over?” Steven asked. He cringed at how pathetic he sounded. “I wanted to talk about--about everything. And, ahaha, apologize for wrecking your mom’s office.”

“Well, we never talked about--you know,” Connie replied. Steven could hear the nervousness in her voice. “Of course you can come over. I’m even more worried about you after yesterday.”

“Sorry. I--there’s been a lot going on with me, and I’m sure you overheard some of it, but--ugh. I don’t want to explain it over the phone. I’m on my way.”

“I’ll be waiting.” There was a muted thump. Closing a book on an unfamiliar chapter. “I really want to see you, Steven. Bye!” She hung up.

He couldn’t help a little smile at Connie’s sincerity. Maybe she did feel the same for him.

The Dondai was an ailing old, smelly beast of a car, but it was Steven’s. His dad had sat down with him and explained exactly why Greg Universe was not going to be added to the car title. Too many things got destroyed with the gems around, and Steven’s dad would not be legally responsible for it if the Dondai got crushed or exploded. Steven readily agreed.

He let the Dondai warm up. Its chilly creaking made Steven especially nervous in the winter. He tapped away at an idle game on his phone while he waited. When he finished all the tasks it required, he tapped away to his messages. Nobody needed him right now, which was a blessing and a curse. He wanted one of the gems or his dad to need him, to pull him away from the very vulnerable conversation he was about to have. No such luck.

When the Dondai was sufficiently warm, Steven set his phone on the passenger seat, sighed, and put the car in drive.

He didn’t pay attention to the scenery, to how pale the winter sunlight made everything look. How bleak. It got dark too quickly during this time of year, and it only made Steven feel worse. It always had, but now that he was aimless and unconfident, he felt more like poop than usual. Like shit, actually. But Pearl would make him scrub out his mouth if he ever used words that strong to explain his feelings. And Garnet might punch them out of his vocabulary. So . . . like a big pile of hot, steaming, slightly bloody poop.

Steven turned onto the Maheswarans’ street without remembering the trip. He was hyper-aware of sweating from the puffer jacket and the heater on full blast, but he didn’t have any deodorant with him to dry his underarms. Connie would smell it the second he took off his jacket; she would recoil from the stench and force him out of the house, never to speak to him again for how bad it smelled--

And he was pink again. Steven didn’t even try to calm himself this time. He knew he’d only start glowing again when he saw Connie. He just turned off the Dondai and stepped onto the Maheswarans’ porch to ring the doorbell.

Steven heard faint footsteps, growing louder, descending the two-story house. Within seconds, they were just on the other side of the door, but the Connie they belonged to hesitated before opening the door. Steven was certain he was drenched under his jacket.

The locks tumbled and finally the door opened. Connie stood on the other side, dressed up a little more than her usual shorts and polo. She had fixed up her hair and put on a blue sundress despite the winter chill blowing in. She smiled up at him through the blinding pink glow. “Hi again.”

Steven smiled back. He was worried about being smelly for nothing. The glow faded. “Hullo. May I come in?”

Connie nodded and stepped back to let him inside. “My parents are at work, so we can talk wherever.”

Steven thought about that while he took off his jacket and tossed it onto the chair. He’d never been in Connie’s room before, only seen it on FaceTime. He desperately wanted to see all of it at once, life-size, but he didn’t want her parents to come home and accuse him of being a rake. But he didn’t want to be in the middle of an emotional monologue in the living room when they got home.

Pink. Steven pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “You decide.”

“All right. You want a snack?” Connie sat on the couch and patted the spot beside her.

“No, I’m so nervous I might throw up.” He joined her, a respectable half-foot away which now felt too close after the proposing fiasco. He dropped his head into his hands. “I don’t even know how to start.”

Connie put a warm, gentle hand on his back. “Start with the most pressing thing.”

“Do you hate me?” The question popped out before he even realized he’d been thinking it. Steven hated how minute his voice sounded, how pathetic.

The warmth of Connie’s hand faded from his back, and Steven peered up at her. She was blurry in his field of view. He panicked for a second that his eyes had deteriorated so quickly. He blinked, and the blurriness faded because hot tears were now running down his cheeks. He wiped them away as quickly as they appeared. He took a breath to say something, but his lungs cracked on a sob instead.

Well, his eyes might be fine, but his heart was crumbling. Oh, how he felt like the Sea Spire, chipping away under the pressure of time.

Connie crouched down in front of him. She grabbed one of his hands and lowered it so he could not hide his face. “Steven,” she cooed. “You know if I hated you, I wouldn’t have let you in the house. You’re my best friend. You know how much I care.”

Steven shook his head. “Well, I know it, but I don’t feel it. I don’t feel anything but bad anymore. I don’t know how to feel better. I--we have been through so much--”

“That comparatively minor stuff feels like the end of the world,” Conne finished solemnly. “I know.”

Steven finally looked up at her. He took back his hand to wipe at his face. “How do you do it? How do you cope with everything? Any human help would lock you away, talking about gems and Homeworld. And me.”

“Well,” Connie stretched the word out. She shifted to sit criss-cross-applesauce. “Whenever I got overwhelmed by all the bad stuff that happened, I talked to the gems. Which I know is really hard--” she poked Steven’s cheek, and his expression lightened a hair “--but it helped when I thought nothing else really could.”

Steven frowned. “But,” he trailed off. He flinched at Connie’s expectant expression. “You didn’t talk to me about it,” he finished uncertainly. “Why?”

Connie looked away. Her usually clear sky clouded over. Steven thought she looked farther away than he did. She said she didn’t hate him, that he was her best friend. That obviously meant she really _didn’t_ want to marry him. She was pulling away the same way he was, choosing not to spend time with him. She was lying; she really did hate him--

A now-pink Steven stood up. The movement jerked Connie out of her cloudy sky. “Why didn’t you come to _me_?”

Connie leaned back to peer pleadingly up at him. “I--I needed to talk to someone who wasn’t as involved. I wanted a fresh pair of eyes to help me break down the whole experience. Please, Steven, it’s not because I don’t care about you--” She gasped when Steven lurched into motion again. His face was so _dead_. Steven had made her angry and happy and sad, but never _afraid._

He grabbed his jacket from the chair and started to put it on. He was as slow as molasses; he couldn’t get out of Connie’s house fast enough.

“I _know_ , Connie. But it doesn’t feel that way. I’m sorry. This was a bad idea. I’ve got a headache.” He didn’t bother to zip up his jacket. He stuck his hands in his pockets and stopped at a crumbly sound. He took out the pastel to-do list, slightly rumpled from being handled, and sighed. Nothing else was getting done today, and he knew it. He balled it up, threw it over his shoulder, and opened the door. “I’ll see you later, Connie. Sorry for wasting your studying time.”

He glanced back at her and instantly regretted it. She was on her knees, to-do list in one hand, the other reaching for him. He had made her cry. He felt like _pile of shit_ was an appropriate phrase right now, Pearl and Garnet be damned.

He closed the door with a quiet click and fished his keys out of his jeans pocket. Closed safely in the Dondai, he screamed at the ceiling until his lungs told him to stop. He dropped his head onto the steering wheel and flinched away with a yelp when the horn honked at him in protest.

Steven let the Dondai warm back up while he caught his breath. He cut the wheel and drove away from the Maheswarans’ neighborhood. He doubted he would return anytime soon.


	2. Rain Bands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven says "fuck" in front of Pearl, and it has repercussions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't want to talk about homeworld bound.
> 
> CW: body horror.

Steven opened the mass grave where the to-do list corpses resided. He gathered them all in a stack and folded them up with a preciseness that would make Pearl cry with admiration. They fluttered gently into the trash can below, one by one, prodigal leaves finally on their way home.

He couldn’t get the sight of Connie’s tears dropping off her chin and into the carpet below her out of his mind. They fell, fell, fell down into his sky and pelted down, down, down into the sea below. A storm was brewing. The first bands of rain were already making landfall.

None of the lights in the house were on. The setting sun filtered through the windows instead, casting shadows over parts of the house that were normally full of laugh-light. The gems were out, but Cat-Steven was nearby, snoozing in a stretched rectangle of sunlight. Fur gleaming, she stretched and grunted.

Steven let fly the last folded list and crouched next to Cat-Steven. He took the opportunity to stroke her soft belly while she was still sleeping, a feat no one could manage when she was awake lest the culprit face her knifehands. A faint purr began deep in Cat-Steven’s chest. Steven had learned early that getting Cat-Steven to purr was a rare treat, and he had resolved to never take it for granted. He used the rumbling under his hand to ground him.

“I wish I was a cat,” Steven pouted. “You always know exactly what you want. And you’re not afraid to yell at someone to get it.”

Cat-Steven woke at the sound of his voice, her single eye narrowed in annoyance. She curled around Steven’s vulnerable hand and attacked, making Steven yelp and flinch back. The more he struggled and tried to yank his hand away, the harder Cat-Steven gripped. A fuzzy bear trap he had willingly welcomed into his home. Her delightful nap had been rudely interrupted by a smelly teenage boy, and she was not pleased.

Steven lifted his grappled hand and dropped Cat-Steven into his free arm. She let go instantly. Baby position always made Cat-Steven stop what she was doing. She was often held like this because of how often she complained about starving when there was clearly food _right there_. Amethyst had once told Steven that he had been less annoying as a child than Cat-Steven is, and he hadn’t been sure how to take the comment.

With his hand newly freed, he set Cat-Steven down on the rug. She wrapped her tail primly around her paws and gave him a death glare before grooming the smell of Steven off her.

Steven made an incredulous face at her. Not even Cat-Steven wanted him around.

He started to unbutton his jeans but rebuttoned them when the front door opened. He just wanted to rot in his underwear on his bed for a while. But that was unseemly, according to Pearl, who twirled into the house, humming a cheerful tune.

Steven watched Cat-Steven bolt down the stairs to yowl at Pearl.

“Oh, Cat-Steven!” Pearl exclaimed. Steven heard her clap her hands together. “Are you hungry, sweetie pie?”

Cat-Steven _brrp_ ed in reply.

The floorboards barely creaked under Pearl’s feet, but creak they did nonetheless to the cabinet in which the cat food was stored.

“Pearl, don’t you dare feed that goblin!” Steven called from his room. “I fed her when I got home. She’s trying to trick you!”

“Surely a little snack couldn’t hurt,” Pearl replied. Her voice turned squeaky as she addressed Cat-Steven. “You’re just a helpless, hungry little baby! Don’t worry, you’re not a goblin. Steven is just being _rude_.”

He rolled his eyes. Cat-Steven could be so dramatic.

Pearl spoke while she poured out some kibble into a bowl. “I thought you were going to be out all day. You weren’t home when I popped in earlier.”

Steven flinched and sat on his bed. “I had some errands to run but got too tired halfway through.”

Pearl closed the cabinet. “That’s unlike you. Does this have to do with your pink outbursts?”

Steven winced. “No,” he muttered. “Somethin’ else.”

“Hmm?” Pearl ascended the stairs. “Are you getting sick?” She sat next to him, brows furrowed in gentle concern, and placed a hand on his forehead.

Steven brushed it away and shook his head. “I feel bad, but I’m not sick. I went to see Connie. I made her cry.”

Pearl lurched back. “Why on Earth would you do that, Steven?” she shrieked. “I thought you wanted to marry her.”

Connie’s bewildered face flashed in his mind, her arm raised as if he was an enemy who’d come to hurt her. He remembered being in the same position too many times to count in his earlier years, when Homeworld gems wanted Rose Quartz shattered. His guts ached. He groaned, and the pink glow returned.

“I don’t know!” he cried. “I don’t know why I did that! I don’t know what I’m doing anymore! It’s all just a fog now, and it would scare me if I had the energy to be scared!”

He shot to his feet to pace on the rug Cat-Steven had just occupied. He kicked a rogue cheese ball under his dresser and screamed through gritted teeth. “I can’t get it out of my head! It’s driving me crazy! Why can’t I just be rejuvenated and forget it all?”

“Forget what?” Pearl asked tentatively.

“Everything!” Steven bellowed. The house shook from the force. “Drilling to the cluster, drifting in space, the zoo, White Diamond _fucking tearing me in half_!” In the split second his brain caught up to his mouth, he whirled around, eyes wide as the full moon just breaking the ocean’s surface.

Pearl gasped, spidery hands flying to her mouth. The room froze. Once the shockwave washed away, she stood. Carefully, she approached him and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Steven,” she murmured.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Before he knew it, Pearl had wrapped her arms around him. Steven couldn’t understand it. The first time he’d ever repeated a curse word at age eleven, Pearl had screamed at him until he’d cried and confessed Lars had taught it to him. Now he dwarfed Pearl in his own arms and buried his face in her chest, crying for a different reason.

“I wish you’d come to one of us before you got here,” Pearl said. She ran a hand through his curls. “We keep underestimating you. We thought you would be hardy, like us, and put everything you experienced on Homeworld behind you. But your powers are so reliant on your emotions.” She leaned back to peer down at him. “We should have realized how something like that could have affected you. We should have stopped building Little Homeworld to talk to you.”

Steven shook his head. His glow faded, and with it most of the light in the house. He waited for his eyes to adjust before speaking. “It’s not your fault. It didn’t happen . . . immediately? I guess. It happened so slowly that I didn’t know it was happening at all until I saw Dr. Maheswaran yesterday. Now that I have--well, some idea of what’s happening, I think it’ll be easier from now on.”

Pearl rubbed his back in soothing circular motions. A circle, the shape of a rose quartz, the gem in his stomach, the shape of the cycle of precipitation, the sun, time, all life on Earth. The shape of everything. So much meaning packed into a single line with no corners, no start and no stop. Contrast it with a square drawer in a messy mental filing cabinet, where Steven had thrown all his bad memories away. How did a circle do it? Manage to hold everything inside it without collapsing from the weight of eternal memory, its responsibility?

“Please, Steven, talk to us,” Pearl said. “More than you have been.” Her voice turned scolding. “Especially now that you’ve been to Connie’s mom and have no excuse anymore.”

Steven laughed weakly. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry I didn’t go to anyone before. And I’m sorry for cursing.”

“It’s all right. You didn’t know what was happening.” Pearl pivoted behind Steven so quickly he almost missed it. She gave him a nudge forward. “Now go wash your mouth out. I better not hear that filthy language come out of you ever again.”

He laughed harder this time, a genuine laugh that was almost its own light source. The house pulsed brighter at the clear sound. He descended the stairs and closed himself in the bathroom. He hadn’t showered the sweat off him yet, and he took the opportunity to do so now.

The faucet squeaked in protest. A warning to stop bothering it and to leave it alone. Steven perfectly understood how it felt. But, like those around him, he couldn’t just leave it be. He needed it to help him. Just like others needed him to help them.

Steven sighed. He put a hand under the stream of water to check the temperature. Sufficiently warm, he stripped and stepped into the tub. He hummed the Pepe’s Burgers jingle, a song that had originally belonged to his father before being traded for ten million smackaroos. Steven thought his dad’s version was better.

He heard the front door open, two familiar voices bouncing around the house. The other two Crystal Gems had returned home. Pearl greeted them along with Cat-Steven.

He wished he could stop being needed. Needing others. Needing to be needed. He wished he could go back to when he was a child, unaware of Diamonds and wars and alien planets. He wished he could stop feeling the weight, the pain of all his past-broken bones falling upon him at once while his gem half screamed at White Diamond. How he wished he could go back in time, tell a younger Steven to run away from Beach City and never look back, never know that he could be split into so many pieces of himself.

The bathtub was awash in a sea of pink. The light moved as Steven did. Reaching up to wash his hair, which he hadn’t done in almost a week. Reaching down to wash the sweat off his underarms. He paused, a frown on his face.

The glow was supposed to be all one shade, the same shade of hot pink all over. At least, that’s how it had manifested so far. Well, Steven hadn’t exactly been checking every nook and cranny when it occurred, so perhaps this spot on his chest had always been darker.

He poked at it. The skin was tougher than normal. He traced the edge of it, felt the divide between skin and . . . hide. This was a leathery hide. This was not normal. He watched a speck form on his right shin and grow. Dark. Hide. The size of a joystick head on his old GameSquare controller. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Gems didn’t corrupt anymore. Was he--was he truly so far gone? He was half human; he was Steven Quartz Universe; he couldn’t corrupt--

He jumped out of the shower dripping water and almost slipped skidding to a stop in front of the mirror. The spot on his chest had grown slightly and now brushed the top of his sternum.

Steven choked on a gasp, slipped on a step backwards. He collided with the floor and let out a grunt on the impact. He scrambled back against the wall, trying to escape the dark spots on his body. If he could just step out of this pink glow, step away from the gem in his lineage, then the corruption would disappear, right?

A shrieking pain lanced through his thumb, and he couldn’t hold in the scream that ripped out of him, tore out his lungs, shredded itself apart on its way out of his windpipe. A cry for help, a cry of fear, a cry that was not human. He curled around his hand, unable to breathe through the strange new transformation.

The bathroom door opened with a bang, and the gems were surrounding him. Questions flew above him. He couldn’t answer any of them, couldn’t even catch a deep breath. All his energy spent on writhing naked on the cold tile, grunting past the pain in his hand.

Steven opened his eyes briefly and squeezed them shut again. His whole body was under attack, every muscle tensed in an effort to divert the nerves. But he saw Amethyst and Pearl’s feet. Garnet was likely nearby, but the bathroom was too small for all of them clustered inside.

This pain was unlike anything he had experienced at the hands of White Diamond. Such a tiny epicenter, grounded in his thumb, and he felt like he would never die for all the hurts. Against its will, he unfurled his body just enough to peer down at it. Where the nail used to reside now rested a claw, a shade of blue-gray unlike anything found on humans on Earth. The skin of his thumb, down to his wrist, was hide.

Pearl and Amethyst recoiled at the sight. Garnet, visorless, shoved them aside and crouched next to Steven. She put a gentle hand on his shaking one and pulled it closer to inspect it.

Steven couldn’t keep his vision straight. It flickered in and out of TV static, darkness, and a magenta hue so blinding it was white at its heart. The pain was starting to subside, and he couldn’t get air in his lungs fast enough.

He was corrupting. He was corrupt. He was corrupted.


	3. Landfall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven has the wrong priorities.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "ollie the semester ended MONTHS ago" yeah i know lol. 2020's been a year.
> 
> edited a continuity error

His first thought was that he’d have to return Connie’s Pintendo Verse. He couldn’t play the copy of Critter Ped X-ing she’d let him borrow with a thumb this big and janked, to use Amethyst’s words. He couldn’t even hold the damned thing right without scratching the screen, let alone press the tiny buttons on the joycon.

Garnet dropped his hand and stood with such measured calmness that Steven couldn’t hold his fractures together any longer. He squeezed his eyes shut and didn’t even feel the tears roll free. His senses were discombobulated. He was still numb from the shock and was hyper aware of her moving around the tiny space.

She turned to the sink and opened the medicine cabinet. Bottles clinked together. She crouched next to the tub, pulled the drain lever, and switched the faucet to run a bath instead of a shower.

The next thing Steven knew, he was back in the bathtub amid three swirling colors: gold, silver, and cerulean. He was so sure he’d come out permanently water marbled, a piece of true-life art, that a whisper of a sob escaped his lips. Despite this new altered, damaged form, he would be a masterpiece.

His tears plinked into the water lapping gently at his gem. The clear salt droplets parted the colors before being enveloped completely. Though the three essences ribboned and danced around him, the hide on his skin remained unchanged.

Garnet crossed her arms and grunted in dissatisfaction. But she didn’t shy away from him the way the others did. She was a beacon of strength in the times when Pearl and Amethyst couldn’t be. Steven found himself struggling to his feet on her solid-rock foundation. He knew she was deeply shaken by this occurrence, but someone had to remain level when shit was hitting the fan.

He wiped his face with his other hand. The diamond essence dispersed the lingering pain, and feeling was returning to the rest of him. His toes, still curled so hard he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to stretch them out again, gradually unfurled. Cool air kissed his bare back, a puddle of fresh and salt water on the floor next to him. His discarded clothes half-soaked in a lump from his frantic escape from the bathtub. The gems hadn’t seen him nude since he was thirteen and unashamed and had used his clothes to combat an old Frybo suit, and he couldn’t help but be ashamed of being in such a compromising position now.

He raised his head to peer at Garnet. “Can I get dressed?” he croaked. His voice was shredded from his initial screams. His heartbeat slowly returned to its normal pace. Returning to a new homeostasis, a new normal.

Garnet nodded. She placed a hand on his wet hair. It was an affectionate gesture she hadn’t given in a few weeks, since she was busy with Little Homeschool now. “Take as much time as you need to gather yourself.” She stood.

“But--” Amethyst started.

“Steven needs a moment to himself,” Garnet replied more sternly. “Let’s give him space.” She wasted no time in getting the gems to exit the bathroom.

Steven drew circles in the water. He couldn’t look at his gem right now. Corruption was the only illness a gem could endure, if it could be called such. Would it have even been possible for Steven to do so with a human body, he’d thought years ago? If so, would it be as painless as a whole gem’s transformation? He’d spent many sleepless nights chasing his thoughts around when he’d first learned of corruption three years ago, confident it could never happen to the Crystal Gems but morbidly curious anyway.

The answers were here now. Yes. And no.

He really didn’t want to find out what the other parts of his body would feel like, if that was just his _thumb_.

Steven slowly stretched his torso to rest on the cool edge of the tub. His lungs were still trying to catch up, and his chest heaved with the effort of his body trying to be fine again. But it wasn’t fine, and his lungs knew it. He knew it. The gems knew it. Soon, everyone who saw him would know it.

He shifted; the squeaking his skin made against the tub’s walls grounded him. He was Steven Quartz Universe. He could fix it. Or stop it from spreading further, if he couldn’t fix it.

 _I will fix it_ , he thought angrily. He pushed himself to his wobbly feet, slowly so as not to collapse on himself. _I will not let this overtake me_.

The physical trauma had yet to wear completely off. Coming off such an intense adrenaline high he hadn’t felt in ages, his whole skeleton shook. He was almost afraid to take a step in case he slipped and bashed his head on something, passing out altogether.

But the gems were waiting. He needed to dry off and dress himself. Before he did, he twisted and turned, checking the rest of his body for strange spots. Aside from what he’d already found, it seemed as if the rest of him was fine. A small blessing, at least. Not a water marble masterpiece, though, which was disappointing. He slipped into his clean underwear and pajamas. Even after such a traumatic experience, being in a freshly laundered set of comfortable clothes was a balm to his stormy soul. Thankfully, he’d put them on the toilet, high above the watery mess he’d made, and they’d remained mostly dry through the whole thing.

He rejoined the gems after toweling up the puddle and draining the tub, hair wrapped in a towel hat. He looked so (almost) normal exiting the bathroom that it was comical. Except no one was laughing. In fact, it looked like someone had died in the living room, from the way Pearl was weeping into her hands and Amethyst was twiddling her thumbs. Only Garnet looked unchanged, but that was because she had always been the most stoic of the four.

No one spoke. No one stood, and Steven didn’t join them on the sectional. Cat-Steven emerged from under it where Steven’s scream had surely scared her, read the room, and began running around with a wide eye. When her antics didn’t break the tension, she rubbed against Steven’s leg, a cloud whispering by him.

But Steven flinched anyway and caused a chain reaction. Cat-Steven swatted at his foot, and he stumbled as she zigzagged under him. Amethyst dove over the coffee table to sweep Cat-Steven up in one arm and put a stabilizing hand on Steven’s back. Pearl shrieked and buried her face into her hands. Garnet was the only one that remained neutral and still.

Amethyst straighterend. Cat-Steven leapt down and bounded up the stairs to Steven’s room. Amethyst moved the hand on Steven’s back to his shoulder and broke the ice. “You okay?”

Steven looked everywhere but at the gems. “Do I look okay?” he asked dryly.

Amethyst rolled her eyes. “Absolutely not,” she replied. She pushed him to the sectional and made him sit. "Talk. To. Us."

Garnet adjusted her visor. "But before you do, I want you to know that we love you, Steven. Don't hold anything back. We are here to help you through whatever you need."

Steven rested his elbows on his knees and stared at his newly changed thumb. "I went to see Connie's mom. She told me it's--ugh. It's a lot, and I'm not sure how to explain it." He sat back and stared at the ceiling. "I'm just so caught up on what White Diamond did to me."

His gut gave an involuntary pang. He pressed a hand against his stomach to ease the pain. "Anyway, it's been getting worse. I start thinking about the end of Era Two and then I can't breathe and then I start glowing and--" he cut himself off. As predicted, he was having a hard time catching his breath, but there was no glowing yet. The room began to spin. Speaking about his first mission to Homeworld two years later still invoked the constant fear and vulnerability he'd felt there.

"Steven," Pearl whispered. She placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed.

He counted his breaths until he could see straight again. "I already freaked out on Pearl and told her basically the same thing. But . . . Yeah. It's mental trauma, according to Connie's mom. And new trauma. I've been messing up with Connie a lot lately--with everyone, really--and I hate it. I used to be so good at apologizing, and now I can't even do that right anymore." He recounted his visit with Connie earlier in the day and couldn't stop a tear from dripping down his cheek. His voice remained steady, though.

"But is that why you're corrupting?" Garnet mused calmly. “If you have been struggling with what happened since it happened, then you should have started corrupting far sooner.”

The matter-of-fact tone with which she spoke had a leveling effect on the room. Even Steven felt like he could easily tackle this issue. After a long sleep, of course. Garnet was correct. Something else was the root of the issue.

Pearl made a noise of recognition. The others turned to look at her. She clamped a hand over her mouth, eyes darting to Steven, who frowned in response. He didn’t follow the connection she had made. “When we talked earlier,” she started. “You got angry and _said the F word_.”

Ah. That was it. Steven groaned. He didn’t want to be ratted out like this. He’d hoped the confession would come in its own time, from his own mouth.

Anger was unlike him, though, unless it was an immediate reaction to something someone else had done. He hadn’t truly expressed anger since before the first mission to Homeworld. Anger was an emotion unfamiliar to him. It didn’t . . . linger in Steven. It wasn’t supposed to. He had been love and acceptance for so long that feeling anger felt like committing a cardinal sin.

If this was the issue, then fine. Steven would stop being angry. If his thumb and the splotches on his chest and shin were permanent, fine. Whatever he could do to stop the corruption, he would do.

“For now, though,” Garnet continued, “I think it’s best we let Steven rest for the night. We need to think on this. Figure out how to go from here, watch him and make sure it’s not spreading.”

All of them bobbed their heads, including Cat-Steven, who’d followed a bug down the stairs and was chattering away at it as it floated teasingly out of reach.

“I’m sorry,” Steven murmured.

The gems stood and began to disperse but turned and froze when Steven spoke.

“What even for?” Amethyst asked incredulously.

Steven shrugged limply. He was a wrung out noodle, swollen from soaking up too much water. If someone touched him he’d likely break into smaller, sadder noodle bits. Noodles all over the sectional, making a mess and staining the fabric. They’d have to replace it with a cleaner, newer sectional.

“Just . . . I don’t know. I’m sorry for being sorry. Sorry for causing trouble.”

“It’s our job to help gems in need,” Garnet reminded him. “You are a gem in need. We will help you through this.”

Steven swallowed and looked at her. At the gems who’d guarded him and fought alongside him for years. He felt rather foolish with his pink thumb and towel hat, becoming one with the sectional, but he’d rather the gems see him like this than anyone else. He nodded. “Thank you.”

“Good night, Stee-man,” Amethyst said as she turned to the doorway to her room. “Get some rest.”

Garnet left with Pearl, and Cat-Steven abandoned the bug and now stalked around the kitchen. Alone with himself, Steven gathered his energy and sat up. He unwrapped the towel hat and stared at it in his transformed hands. At his new thumb and a patch of pink leather on the back of his other hand. He sighed and stood.

Back in the bathroom, Steven hung up the towel and dug in the medicine cabinet for the nail clippers and a metal file. A ragged claw would do him no good. Once he’d spent ten minutes shaping the new thumbnail into a more acceptable form, he trudged up to his room and buried himself under the blankets on his bed. He hated stairs. Why was his room on the second floor? So much energy. . . .

He reached for his phone on the night stand and tapped through several apps. When he got caught in a loop in which no app was updating and he’d cycled through all of them six times, he finally navigated to his text messages.

_do you want your verse back? it’s not broken but something happened and i can’t really use it anymore_

He sent the message to Connie, plugged in the charger, and rolled over to stare at the moon outside his window until he fell asleep.


	4. Thunderstorm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven compares himself to a GameSquare controller.

No response from Connie. According to Steven’s phone, she hadn’t read the message at all. Well, Steven reasoned, she could have had a busy evening and morning or forgot to charge her phone last night or she was never speaking to him again.

Well, all of the above reasons were fine. If she got back to him, then great. If she never spoke to him again after he freaked out on her yesterday, then he deserved it. He was such a screw up; he couldn’t get anything right with her anymore. Why was it so hard to read her now? Was it so hard to just let her explain why?

 _Because her explanation doesn’t change the fact that she hurt me_ , Steven thought. _So it doesn’t matter if she explains why._

He stretched across his bed to the corner and grabbed her Verse where it had rested with him. She’d let him register a second account on it for Critter Ped-Xing so he could decorate his own house without wiping her save file. Something about living in a house that wasn’t constantly being destroyed by alien species was utterly charming. Steven lived vicariously through his avatar.

He turned the console on and tried to open Critter Ped-Xing. It took a couple of tries to press the right button, but he managed. After picking the weeds and collecting all the fossils, Steven attempted fishing. It didn’t go well.

When Connie first let him borrow her Verse, he’d been so excited to try it. He didn’t have much in the way of recent games and consoles--his TV had a built-in VCR player--so he’d racked up another hundred hours in Critter Ped-Xing just running around and planting flowers. The game was so pretty that he couldn’t wait for the next day to start so he could keep playing.

But that was before he proposed. Before he visited Dr. Maheswaran’s office, before he fought with the Verse’s owner. Critter Ped-Xing didn’t hold the same charm anymore, knowing this copy would eventually have to be returned to the person he’d fought with.

Before Steven turned off the Verse, he directed his avatar to the in-game shop and bought a fortune cookie. It was a system from an older entry in the Critter Ped-Xing series but had come back in a recent update. Luckily, he didn’t have to walk around Beach City with the console asleep in his pocket in order to earn currency for them.

_I see much pink in your future. Much pink indeed._

Steven read the fortune twice before blinking hard to dispel an oncoming headache. He read it again. _I see much red in your future. Much red indeed._

Well, that settled it. He wasn’t having any more fun with the game. Steven saved it, turned the console off, and put in the now empty mass grave where the to-do lists once lived. Out of sight, out of mind!

Out of sight, out of mind. Out of sight, out of his mind. Steven couldn’t be corrupting. He was Steven Universe. His life couldn’t be falling apart when he had to pull all of gem-kind together.

He checked his messages. Connie had read it, according to the receipt, but not responded.

The spots on his shin and chest hadn’t grown overnight, which was a blessing. But they hadn’t gone away, either, and his thumb was still corrupted. Well. Stasis was better than nothing.

He should tell her.

He didn’t. Not yet.

Steven and the Crystal Gems needed to learn more about this new state of being before sounding the alarm. Was it truly tied to emotion or something else? So much of Steven was empathy that corruption being something else made no sense, but he supposed there was always a possibility that it couldn’t be emotion.

A knock on the wall just outside his room startled him out of his thoughts. He sat up--while playing on Connie’s Verse, he’d slipped down in bed until he was lying down again. “Yeah?” he asked.

Amethyst ascended the last stairs and entered the room. “Hey, Stee-man,” she greeted. “How’s it going?”

Steven shrugged. “Nothing’s changed so far. Hard to play games now, though.”

Amethyst let out a shriek of delight. “I bet I could finally beat you at Lonely Blade IV!”

Steven rolled his eyes. “The only way that could ever happen is if both my hands got chopped off.”

Amethyst picked up a controller--the broken one he never had plugged in anymore. “Want to try, then?” She crawled onto his bed and dangled it in front of him. When he reached to swat it away, she reared back and spun it on its cord. “Loser says what!”

Steven lunged for her but missed. He was still wrapped up in his comforter. Irritated, he stopped to untangle himself while Amethyst’s hoarse guffaws rattled the glass in the sliding door nearby.

While she was bent over her knees and catching her breath, Steven shot forward and wrapped his arms around her middle. She lost her balance, and they both fell to the floor in a heap.

Steven sat on top of her, eyes feverwild with anger, face glowing pink. “Give it _back_!” he spat, shaking her shoulders when he said the last word.

Amethyst gaped at him, all joviality gone. She offered the controller to him, and he snatched it out of her hand before getting up and cradling it to his chest. “It’s just a broken controller,” she murmured.

“It’s not _funny_ , Amethyst. _None_ of this is funny,” Steven muttered fiercely.

“I didn’t mean to make you freak out,” Amethyst replied. She looked away, hugging herself. “I just wanted to cheer you up.”

Steven tossed the controller in the trash can. No use keeping it when half the buttons didn’t work anymore. He stared down at the plastic shell of what it used to be, and Steven felt an odd kinship with the item. He, like it, was just a shell of what Steven Universe used to be, used so much he’d finally stopped working.

He squatted next to the trash can and stared at it as the glowing faded. At his thumb. He watched the pink hide creep closer to his wrist. A slow encroaching, but an inevitable takeover nonetheless.

Pearl was right--it was anger that was driving the corruption. So all Steven had to do was stop being angry.

But where was that anger coming from?

He’d fixed everything, walked through hell and back on Homeworld, spent years in space setting up alien democracy, disconnected from his own homeworld. The danger was over. There were no more threats to be angry at.

“I’m sorry,” Steven said, still looking at the trash can. He twisted around to address Amethyst better, but she had already left.

He sat back on his heels and sighed.

Connie kept getting distracted. She kept seeing Steven’s dead eyes overlaid on top of his thousand-watt smile. How could the two expressions be from the same person? He had stopped being the boy she knew sometime when he was in space, and it was extremely distressing to see the change.

He’d texted her last night, and it was completely unrelated to what they’d argued about. No apology, no acknowledgement of his actions. Just “Yeah, hey, do you want your thing back?”

She was so taken aback by Steven’s audacity that she’d turned her phone off and sandwiched it between her mattress and boxspring. She’d pilfered the kitchen for one of her mother’s old kitchen timers and was now using it to measure her studying.

But she might as well not have because what had happened to Steven? Another gem crisis? Had he tried to hurt himself? Her thoughts whirlpooled around her brain like a drain until only droplets remained behind. Those droplets didn’t care if he’d made her cry herself to sleep last night; they wanted to know what had happened.

Del Marva winters were so disorienting. Though it was only five pm, Connie was certain it was closer to eight. The sunlight was nearly gone; what was left of it stretched and fractured across her bedspread, and for a brief moment she thought she’d lost several hours to the decay of memory.

She dug under her mattress for her phone and turned it back on. Luckily, it had cooled off and not set anything on fire, as was her mother’s constant worry. She returned to her desk and closed her textbook, waiting for it to restart.

When her notifications and messages finally came through, she scrolled through until she hit the conversation thread she and Steven shared.

No new messages from Steven.

Whatever. She navigated to her conversation with Patricia. While her phone was off, Patricia had sent a couple of messages continuing where they’d left off.

_I think pepe’s burgers is better than all the other chains, but it’s still fast food_

_They have a really catchy jingle that I like a lot haha!_

Connie smirked. Mr. Universe had sung the original for her once, and she liked his version way better.

She typed out a reply. _Yeah, fast food is really bad for you no matter how you spin it, but at least Pepe’s Burgers has ethically sourced tomatoes, unlike Wendie’s._

She . . . actually had to double check that before sending it. She wasn’t quite as up to speed on fast food ethics as she was about some other subjects.

An ellipsis popped up to show Patricia had started typing, then disappeared, then reappeared. _I mean neither of us would eat at pepe’s or wendie’s to begin with but if I had to support one it’d definitely be pepe’s_

Connie nodded along even though she couldn’t see Patricia. She’d do the same.

The kitchen timer _dinged!_ , and Connie sighed. Break time was over. She flipped her textbook open with a sad _thump_ and hunched over it. Her back ached from the constant leaning.

She wanted to go back in time and ache from training with Pearl. She missed the thrill of landing hits on Holo-Pearl and tag-teaming with Steven. This studious ache wasn’t the same, and it just distracted her more.

Connie leaned back in her chair and propped a foot on its edge. Lion had popped by earlier in the day to get pets and wet food, and she’d gone for a ride with him around the neighborhood for the fifteen minutes she was on break. He slept for an hour on her bed and then left; she’d gone through two sheets on the lint roller cleaning up all his fur. He shed so much.

A pale pink flash at her window signified his return to the street below. Connie stood and ambled over to peer at him.

Lion sat staring up at her, aloof as always yet fidgeting. Connie had spent so much time with him that she knew what that meant. He wanted to go for a run with her.

Connie sighed. She went back to her desk and marked her page with a pencil and grabbed her phone. She messaged her mother to let her know Lion was taking her somewhere and that she’d text when she arrived there.

Slipping it into her pocket, she grabbed a coat and shrugged it on while jogging downstairs. She took her housekeys from the hook on the wall and descended the porch stairs.

Lion padded up to her and crouched so she could climb onto his back. Once settled, Lion stood and took off, roaring a portal into the air and jumping through.

On the other side of it was the temple.


	5. Tropical Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven dances to the steady beat of his progressively deteriorating mental health!

Lion jogged to a stop on the beach outside Steven’s house. Obsidian’s likeness, carved into the cliffside, blocked the remaining sunlight. This wasn’t the first time Connie wished she could have seen the temple in its heyday. Obsidian herself, a beast unlike any Connie had ever seen, would be ashamed of how her stone hands had crumbled and fallen into the sand.

Steven was part of Obsidian. He loaned his power to the Crystal Gems to form her; Connie’s legs had trembled as the fusion’s arms unfolded on Homeworld. Of all the powerful gems they had all faced, Obsidian’s might was the only power Connie was truly afraid of. Not even the diamonds could shake her courage.

On the sand below Obsidian’s eroded stare was a figure. They swirled to a beat Connie couldn’t hear. She squinted--it was almost pitch black now--and recognized Steven.

She watched his hips move in time with an elevated pulse, one that seemed to evoke life more than the one in his body. The gems had been giving him dance lessons in their free time, but Connie hadn’t been able to watch or join since she had so many studies now.

He was enthralling. She’d never seen Steven dance with such purpose before. The last time she’d seen him dance, it had been a dorky little number to form Obsidian--how could such a happy-go-lucky child be part of something so frightening?

Steven kicked up no sand, or maybe it was just too dark to see it. He was a leaf on the wind, cradled in the crook of the song’s elbow for a few beats before launching himself back into a freefall of movement.

The moon was climbing quickly up to its throne in the sky. The light it reflected shone down on Steven, and Connie could see him more clearly. He was dressed too lightly for a winter evening--just his pink jacket and his pajamas, a set of headphones where his earmuffs would go, its cord disappearing into the jacket pocket. He had a glove on only one hand.

He spun, arms raised, head thrown back. His eyes were shut tight against the light of the moonstars. He moved like a storm, conjuring up thunderheads above him and drinking in the imaginary rain like he had spent a thousand dry years in the desert.

The sphere of air around him sparked and shimmered, heady and heavy with the electric urge to fuse. He was halfway there, his gem glowing so pink it was white at its heart, but he was alone.

He slowed to a stop as the song came to a close, facing away from Connie. He peered at the horizon, a vast blackness where ocean met sky. Connie shuddered and couldn’t help a light gasp at the chill in the air. She hadn’t willingly gone into the ocean since Jasper had walked out of it.

Steven turned at the sound, and his stare pierced through Connie. He looked exhausted. His gem’s glow faded until it snuffed out completely, and the air he’d riled up settled back into its natural state. He pushed his headphones back to rest around his neck and silently held out his bare hand.

Connie slid off Lion’s back and booped his snoot before closing the gap between her and Steven. She kept her own hands close to her chest as she approached and couldn’t keep her brows from knitting together in concern. Faintly, she could hear music pumping through the lifelines of his headphones. He didn’t reach into his pocket, where his phone was nestled, to pause it.

He motioned with his fingers for her to come closer.

Connie stopped and peered at his hand. It was large enough that it could swallow her own easily. His palm was rough and dry, but most of the callouses from fighting two years ago had finally faded. His fingertips and knuckles were red and trembling from the cold. All except one.

Gently, she took it in her own. She felt Steven tug her closer, but before he could start dancing with her, she stepped back and yanked his hand up to her face. Under the moonlight, it was hard to see, but his thumb was definitely not the same shape and color as it had been yesterday.

“What _is_ this?” she asked. She looked up at Steven, who was studiously avoiding her gaze and staring at Obsidian’s stone pinky a few yards away. She gave his hand a jolt. “Steven!”

“It’s corruption,” he murmured.

Connie dropped his hand as if she’d been stung and stepped back. “What do you mean?”

Steven shrugged. He scratched the back of his neck with his gloved hand and sighed. “I _mean_ I’m corrupting. That’s it. It’s not happening as fast as it does to pure gems. We’re not sure what it’ll do to me.”

Connie watched him breathe. “Is that why you can’t use my Verse anymore?” she whispered.

Steven nodded. “I’m sorry.”

She moved before she realized it. One second she was just out of his reach, and the next she had her arms wrapped around him. Connie could hear the pulse of a bassline riff coming from Steven’s headphones. Though he listened to all kinds of music except country, he was almost always caught with indie songs. The one playing now sounded dangerous, unusual, unfamiliar, like himself.

They stayed like that, holding onto each other, long enough for the song to loop four times. Connie couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or something else, but Steven began trembling and sniffling. She rubbed his back, rocked him gently from side to side, until he was ready to stand on his own again. The moon sat behind him, hiding his expression from her.

“Can we talk, uh, again? I won’t freak out this time, I promise.” Steven laughed nervously, half turning to face the temple.

“Of course.” Connie smiled.

She followed him up to the house, where all the lights were on. She could see Amethyst, sitting on the kitchen table, and Pearl talking through the massive window next to the door.

Steven groaned as he stepped onto the porch. “They’re gonna try to talk to me,” he whined. He took his phone out of his pocket and paused the music.

Connie stopped ascending the stairs. “Is it something I should wait out here for?”

“No.” He turned back and grabbed her hand, pulling her up the rest of the way. “It’s fine. The only thing anyone’s been able to talk about is me corrupting. We should fill you in, anyway.”

Steven sounded cheerful, but Connie could sense how tired he was. Perhaps it was from dancing for who knows how long before she’d arrived; maybe he was just tired of having yet another gem crisis to deal with. Connie’s chest ached. Some higher power needed to give this poor boy a break.

Connie sighed when she stepped into the warm embrace of the temple. Not as warm as her own house, granted, due to its sheer amount of windows, but it was far better than staying outside.

“Hello, Steven,” Pearl greeted with a tentative smile. “Hello, Connie.”

“Hi!” Connie replied. “Steven told me what’s going on.”

“Ah.” Pearl’s smile faded. “We’re no stranger to corrupt gems, but this is completely new territory. We were so sure it’d never happen to any of us, but here it is happening to the best of us.”

Steven chuckled nervously and blushed. “I wouldn’t say that . . .”

Amethyst made a _psshh_ sound and waved Steven’s objection away. “Don’t be _ridic_ , dude. Without you, the planet would be a clusterf--”

“Amethyst!” Pearl snapped.

Amethyst shrugged, cackling. She hopped off the table and traipsed to the door to her room. “Whatever. See ya nerds later. This gem needs her beauty sleep! Ha!”

Pearl made an irritated noise as Amethyst disappeared through the door. She turned back to Steven and Connie after a moment. “Anyway, Connie. We’re not sure what will happen to Steven as a result of this new . . . dilemma. It seems tied to his emotions. As with everything else.”

Connie glanced over to him. He was frowning viciously at the coffee table, arms crossed rather childishly across his chest. She placed a hand on his bicep, and he relaxed, but still kept his arms crossed. “Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked him.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “I guess we just have to wait and see what happens for now.”

Connie nodded. “We’re here for you, Steven. Don’t forget that.” To Pearl, she asked, “is it all right if I stay overnight?” Puppy eyes deployed.

Steven whipped around at that, brows furrowed. “A-are you sure?” he stammered, cheeks red. “I mean--your parents, won’t they--Uh--”

“Oh!” Connie startled. She reached into her pocket. “I forgot to text them I was here.”

 _I’m at Steven’s house. There’s a gem crisis. Can I stay the night and help sort it out?_ she sent to her mother.

“Well,” Pearl drawled. She tapped her chin. “I don’t know.”

Connie’s phone pinged with a message from her mom. She must be on a break; her mother almost never got the chance to respond so quickly. _Yes. Stay safe. Let me know when you’re coming home._

Connie grinned and shoved her phone in Pearl’s face. “Mom said it’s okay!”

“Well, if Dr. Maheswaran says it’s okay . . .” Steven suddenly chimed in. Double puppy eyes. Pearl stood no chance.

She sighed. “Fine. I suppose it would be good for you to have some non-gem company and someone to keep an eye on you.”

Connie whooped, and the two teenagers high-fived. Steven grinned at her. Its presence punched her in the gut. She hadn’t seen Steven smile so freely in a long time.

“Thanks, Pearl!” Steven exclaimed. He grabbed Connie’s hand and dragged her upstairs to his room.

“Thank you, ma’am!” Connie called.

When they’d stepped into his room, Steven’s sudden burst of energy evaporated instantly. He stood in a cloud of lethargy, moving slowly to take off his jacket and glove. He tossed them onto the rug and flopped onto his bed. He let out such a mighty, muffled groan into the comforter that he deflated.

Connie settled herself much more delicately on Steven’s bed. She waited until he rolled over and spoke.

“I’m sorry for getting angry.”

Connie stared at her hands, clasped in her lap.

“I shouldn’t have gotten so caught up in my own feelings. I should have let you explain.”

“I appreciate the apology. I just--Well, I needed some fresh air, so to speak. Being stuck in all these memories with the only other person more involved than me was . . . stifling.”

She watched Steven tense up the longer she spoke.

“It’s not that I don’t want to talk to you anymore! You’re such a strong person, having to bear all of this. I just didn’t want to dig up all the bad stuff and make you remember,” Connie’s voice whittled to a murmur.

Steven put a hand on his stomach, over the hard crystal embedded in it. He rarely ever touched or looked at it anymore, since White Diamond had ripped it out of him. He hid it. He was afraid of it, afraid of what it made him remember. “No, it makes sense,” he replied softly. He turned his head to look at her. “I’ve just been trying to shove them away altogether.”

“That’s not healthy, Steven,” Connie reprimanded.

“I know.”

“You, most of all, need someone to rely on. I know I’ve been pretty busy, but you know you don’t have to wait for my study breaks to talk to me, if something’s really bothering you, right?”

“Well, yeah, but I don’t want to hurt your chances of getting admitted to Jawyhawk. I know how important it is to you.”

Connie rolled her eyes. “There are a ton more universities I can apply to if Jayhawk doesn’t work out. If you’re having a crisis like--like _this_!” She pointed to Steven’s corrupted hand. “--Then it can wait!”

“You shouldn’t have to settle--”

“And _you_ shouldn’t have to hide your messed up feelings because you feel like you have to be perfect all the time!” Connie exclaimed.

Steven sat up, offense spilled all over his face. “I don’t feel like that!” he said incredulously.

Connie gave him a look as sharp as Rose Quartz’s sword. He would have poofed had he been pure gem. He looked away in embarrassment.

“Steven, it’s been years since we first started getting involved in gem conflicts. I know you’ve dealt with stuff I’ll never experience. Lars, and Peridot’s ship, and floating alone in space. Being half human. Tell me what’s worrying you. Please.”

He sighed. “There’s no way for me to find out most of what’s bothering me unless I do it, and I’m afraid to.” He scooted to the edge of his bed and rested his elbows on his knees. “Corruption aside, I--This is really embarrassing.”

Connie put a hand on his shoulder and smiled encouragingly when he looked at her.

He opened his mouth to speak and found he couldn’t stop. He gripped the gem in his gut, expression panicked and pale. “When Mom had me, she had to give herself up. If I ever have kids, will that happen to me? Will my gem and family legacy be passed down? Do I stop existing? I don’t want to follow in her footsteps. Connie, I don’t even know if I want to be with someone like that to begin with, but everyone else does, and that makes me feel like even more of a freak than I already am. When you were in the bathroom at the skating rink, a girl came up and started flirting with me, and I got so overwhelmed thinking of all of it that I couldn’t talk.”

Connie sat back. Had she misunderstood his intentions? “So, when you proposed--”

Steven jolted and sighed. “I went to Ruby and Sapphire for advice. They’re the only couple I know, and you know _them_.”

“So, do you . . . not feel that way about me?” Connie was careful to keep her voice neutral. “It’s okay if you don’t! It’s just, well, messy, and I think knowing how you feel will help us both in the long run.”

“I--” Steven’s lungs were suddenly far smaller than they were five minutes ago. He couldn’t get enough air; he was drowning in Pink Diamond’s healing fountain again--he was glowing pink again.

“Easy, Steven.”

He stood, and Connie watched him pace, arms hugged around himself. “I don’t know? I don’t know--I--” He stopped in front of the sliding door and tried to make himself small. “I don’t know how to tell the difference.”

Connie patted the spot next to her. “It’s okay to not know. It’s okay to be confused.”

Steven peered at her over his shoulder. Gone was the confidence she’d grown used to seeing. Now, he was just an insecure teenage boy whose own brain he didn’t quite understand, and that fact scared him.

“But--do you know how terrifying it is not to know something so important about yourself?” Steven whispered.

Well, Connie didn’t really, but she knew Steven had plenty of experience with that. She supposed she couldn’t blame him.

“Steven, this is hardly the most difficult challenge you’ve ever faced. I believe you can overcome it. You just need a little help, and that’s okay, too!” Connie smiled.

Steven gave her a tiny smile in return, but he didn’t look convinced. He returned to his spot on the bed. The glow hurt Connie’s eyes from this close, but it faded after a few minutes of Steven holding his head in his hands.

“I’m such a mess. How did I get here?” He stared at his corrupted thumb.

“By being a hero. It sucks now, but it’ll be worth it in the end.”

“Thanks, Connie.”

They both fell back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. A comfortable, easy silence grew between them. They hadn’t felt this at peace together in a while, possibly since before their mission to Homeworld. The storm looked a little lighter from here.

After several minutes, Steven turned to look at her, apprehension on his face again. Connie started sweating when he asked, “so where do you want to sleep?”


	6. Hurricane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven still has a grudge against Kevin.
> 
> CW: attempted violence against a person.

Steven’s sheets, though freshly washed, still smelled faintly like the average teenage boy. But when they embraced him, they held all the scents of Steven: his sweat; aftershave, which he unfortunately couldn’t find in any scent other than AGGRESSIVE MANLY MAN MUSK; green apple scented soap; and seaspray.

This was the first time Connie’s parents had allowed her to stay the night at the temple after Era 3 began. Steven had to coax her into sleeping next to him in bed. It had taken reminding her of their nights spent in a Homeworld prison and in his mother’s palace room--but that was different, she’d pointed out; they’d been forced together by circumstance instead of _choosing_ to be together--his winning thousand-watt smile, his minutes-old rant about romance, and a slightly annoyed sweep of his arm to gesture to the doorless loft bedroom to finally convince her.

He hadn’t understood why she was so hesitant, after everything they’d endured together. She knew him, knew he wouldn’t touch her in a way she didn’t tell him she wanted--and even then, he wasn’t sure he would. He had promised it anyway, gave her the option of him taking the couch instead, a pinky promise. And he’d kept his promise . . . for the most part.

Connie woke before he did, as humans tend to do when sleeping in a new situation. Steven had fallen asleep on the edge of his bed, his back to her, but had gravitated towards the middle to starfish on his stomach more comfortably during the night. Close enough to touch if either of them shifted. She couldn’t resist trying to tamp down his bedhead, but her finger caught in a curl and tugged just hard enough to stir him.

Steven groaned, voice still caught in the jagged clutches of sleep. He reached up to rub at the spot on his scalp Connie had irritated and rolled over, dropping his arm haphazardly over her middle.

She froze. Steven froze. His eyes popped open, met her equally wide ones. He jumped back, yelping hoarsely, and dragged the comforter with him onto the floor. Connie, trapped in the comforter, was dragged to the edge of the bed. She peered at him in bewilderment after catching herself.

He threw his arm out to ward her away. “I’m so sorry!” he shrieked, voice still crackly. “I didn’t mean to!”

Steven didn’t relax, even when she started laughing. He watched her untangle herself from his sheets and approach. She knelt next to him, and he stopped breathing. He was sure he might die from this, from Connie wrapping her arms around his neck, hands buried in his frazzled curls, telling him not to worry, that he was so warm and she loved how much he cared about her comfort--

His chest ached from lack of air, and he gasped into motion again. He put an arm around her, tentatively, and hugged her back. But something still rolled around in his gut that got more agitated when Connie sat back and intently studied his stubbly face. Her expression was off--it was similar to a smile he’d tickled out of her dozens of times before, but it was brighter than normal. He didn’t know what it meant, if it was a fever brightness or something else, or how he should respond to it.

He didn’t like not knowing something about himself.

Steven stood and held a hand out to Connie to help her up. Her smile faded away as she stood.

“I’m sorry I woke you,” she said. “I didn’t mean to scare you half to death.”

Steven dropped her hand and waved the apology off. “It’s probably late enough anyway.”

Though he couldn’t tell from the sliding glass door. The sun was definitely up, but it seemed to be hiding behind a ceiling of solid gray. No rays peeked out from what little sky Steven could see. The meteorologist on the local news had predicted snow moving in overnight--maybe tomorrow morning at the latest, but the clouds above seemed to say _this_ morning instead.

“Ah,” he groaned, “maybe I should get you back home. Looks like it might snow soon.”

Connie sat back on Steven’s bed and reached for her phone. After a minute of staring at it, she looked up and said, “the local forecast says afternoon. It might move in earlier, of course, but we should have time to wake up and eat first.”

Truth be told, he didn’t really have much of an appetite. Connie’s weird look had turned his stomach funny, but he couldn’t exactly say that to her. She seemed to be having a better time than he was. Well, he supposed, she had sort of invited herself over. But Steven had encouraged her to stay, so he couldn’t put all the blame on her.

Maybe he’d feel hungrier when there was a plate of food in front of him.

Steven stared at the comforter that was half on the floor. “Well, I think we’re both pretty awake by now, but I won’t say no to breakfast.”

Connie chuckled. “Yeah, maybe. Then, do you want to go out or what?”

He bent to pick up the comforter and bundled it up in his arms. He couldn’t see past its bulk, so he turned around and stepped backwards until he could dump it in a pile on the mattress next to Connie. He’d remake it later. “How about that new place at the end of the boardwalk? Pancake Hut?”

“Oooh, sounds great! I haven’t had a chance to eat there yet.”

Steven rummaged in his dresser for proper day clothes. He really, truly had no energy with which to change, but he couldn’t be seen with Connie looking like a layabout. He went downstairs to the bathroom to get ready.

He quietly locked the door behind him. Amethyst was sometimes known to burst in and embarrass him while he was taking a dump when he was younger; it had become a habit to lock the door behind him.

He pulled his pajama shirt over his head and dropped it on the floor. He couldn’t tell if the hide patch on his sternum had grown. He peered down at it and lightly picked at the edge. It refused to come up without taking skin with it.

He let his lounge pants fall around his ankles. He peered down at the hide patch on his shin. He picked at it, too. This spot had _definitely_ grown overnight. That was concerning.

He finished changing and preparing for the day, though he skipped shaving since Connie was going home soon anyway. And he really hated the way his aftershave smelled.

Connie was already downstairs with her coat on when Steven emerged from the bathroom. She handed him his jacket with a smile. She bent to give Cat-Steven’s ears a scritch while he shrugged it on, and then they were off.

Pancake Hut was horribly gimmicky. They’d somehow secured a sponsorship with Crying Breakfast Friends, and so their menu and decorations were all horribly depressed. A younger Steven would have loved it and demanded to eat here for every meal, but now it just made Steven . . . depressed. He wanted to eat in peace without dumb emotions bursting through the wall to ruin it.

He leaned his head back against the top of the booth while they waited for their meals. Had time always passed so slowly? Surely not, not in the heat of battle. Ever since White Diamond had cleaved him in two, everything had been shifted two centimeters to the left, happened two milliseconds too slowly. Steven was slightly out of sync with everything around him, out of place, off-color.

Or was it the world that had shifted? So much of it had been scarred by gem interference over its lifespan that he wouldn’t be surprised if Earth had been jostled off its axis at some point.

“Steven?” Connie prompted. “Are you okay?”

He took a second to summon the energy to lower his head and look at her. He hadn’t realized he’d gone somewhere else. “It’s too quiet.”

But Connie’s attention had strayed to the entrance of the restaurant. Her expression morphed from neutral to pained. Her phone, which she had been lovingly tapping on before, was now gripped in a white-knuckled, shaky chokehold.

“Uh, are _you_ okay?” Steven asked. He sat up and started to twist around but stopped when Connie squeaked at him.

“No! Don’t!” she whispered.

“What is it, then?” Steven hissed. In a flash, his shield was on his arm, rosy pink as always.

“Put that away! No weapons at the table!” Connie hissed back. “It’s only Kevin.”

Steven hunched over the table, shield flashing away as he lightly thumped the table with his fists. “ _Only_ Kevin?” he murmured darkly.

Connie placed a hand over one of his. “No, actually. He’s with friends. But it’ll be fine! He’ll ignore us.”

“He’s _never_ ignored us.”

“Not as Stevonnie,” Connie pointed out. “We aren’t fused. He’ll leave us alone.”

Steven very well didn’t believe that, but he’d drop it for Connie’s sake. She had been more freaked out by Kevin than he had, and he didn’t want to draw attention to her. He hated how Kevin cowed her. It had been years since they’d last seen him, and he still had such an effect. Not even White Diamond herself could scare Connie like that.

But White Diamond could scare _Steven_ like that, and suddenly his hands were shaking just as much as Connie’s. His stomach hurt, and he knew he was definitely not eating a well-balanced breakfast today.

Steven groaned and scooted out of the booth. “I’ll be back.”

“Don’t you go bother him!”

He threw out his arms and gave her an incredulous look. “I have to pee!” he hissed.

Though he gave Kevin and his group of friends a wary eye as he passed, he left them alone at Connie’s request. Kevin didn’t even blink at him.

Steven opted for a stall so he could sit down and breathe. White Diamond kept invading his head just like he had invaded hers. Unwelcome guests, Steven and White, and yet they refused to leave each other alone until something changed. Until something broke.

Something grabbed at his gut, at the gem nestled safely in it. Steven gasped, slapping a hand over his mouth to cover the sound. He looked at the ceiling, the sprinkler blurry in his vision, and he squeezed his eyes shut against his pink glow. Something spidery and black was trying to take his gem away again; he could see the manicured claws creeping ever closer . . .

His eyes snapped down to his stomach. A foot behind and above his body, he watched the hand he’d clamped over it lift his shirt and trace the facets of the diamond. He couldn’t breathe fast enough. He couldn’t make Blue Diamond’s tears stop falling from his eyes.

The stall had shapeshifted into White Diamond’s hand; he had been trapped in her clutches this whole time. The past two years had been nothing but an illusion, his life flashing before his eyes before White Diamond ended it, severed Steven in half. He’d never see Era 3, never get to live in peace. Steven Quartz Universe would die here, cradled in the hand of a tyrant, and only Connie would see it happen.

The bathroom door opened. Steven was rocketed back to Pancake Home. White Diamond didn’t have him trapped. He was whole. Connie was waiting for him on the restaurant floor, probably with their food by now.

Still, he waited for the stranger to leave and his breathing to even out before exiting the stall. He peered at himself in the mirror above the sink. He looked disastrous with puffy red eyes and snot streaming into his mouth. _Pull yourself together, Universe_ , he reprimanded himself. He splashed cool water on his face and dried it with a scratchy paper towel. What a horrible start to the day. He kept his eyes on the ground as he made his way back to the booth.

When he looked up, halfway to his destination, he stopped. Connie was giving him a helpless look, shooting her eyes back to someone who had taken his spot at the booth.

_Kevin._

Steven’s heart rate spiked, and lances of heat shot into his palms. He knew Kevin wouldn’t leave her alone. He should have just stayed at the table. He should have let Connie talk him down; maybe Kevin wouldn’t have made a move if he’d seen Steven having a full on breakdown.

“Hey,” Steven snapped when he had returned to the booth.

Kevin looked up, the sleazy grin on his face evaporating when he recognized Steven. “Ugh! You! Why do you always have to ruin everything for me?”

“Why do you always have to ruin everything for _her_?”

“Steven, don’t,” Connie muttered.

We were just having a chat! I was telling her how her hair suits her now. She looks good! It was just a compliment!”

“You’re making Connie uncomfortable. Please leave her alone,” Steven said flatly.

“Sounds like you’re the one bothering her. She told you to stop.”

“And I’m asking you to leave her alone. I even said please.”

Kevin scoffed and waved him away. “If she wants me to leave, then she should just say so.”

Steven looked to Connie. He tried to school his features into neutrality, but the increasingly cornered expression on her face as she glanced between them indicated he’d failed.

“Kevin, I’m sorry,” she started. “I’m not interested. I want you to leave me alone.”

Steven watched Kevin’s face morph as Connie spoke. First he’d been shocked that someone would dare deny him, then angry. Kevin’s mouth twisted into an ugly frown. Finally, that unbothered veneer was slipping. As he stood up from the booth, he said, “fine. Stick with your dumpy, fatass boyfriend. Fucking bitch.”

Something broke.

In the seconds it took for Kevin to pass him, Steven, pink all over, had grabbed Kevin’s arm and whirled him around. He bent Kevin back over the next table, one fist bunched in Kevin’s shirt, the other arm reeled back. He didn’t think, just made a bubble around his hand and bunched the fingers into a fist.

Steven snarled at Kevin. “Don’t you _ever_ call her that again!” he roared. The whole building shook from the force of the thunderous boom.

He let fly his bubbled fist just as Connie shrieked, “Steven! _Stop_!”

Someone grabbed his flying arm. He had just a second to redirect his fist before it collided with Kevin’s pretty face and smashed it like a pumpkin. It landed only centimeters from Kevin’s ear and burst through the table, thoroughly destroying it.

Kevin and Steven both fell as the table crumpled beneath them. Kevin wheezed as violently as a whoopee cushion; Steven may have been a fatass, but there was also a ton of muscle packed under his rolls.

“Steven!” Connie shouted.

Steven rolled off Kevin and peered up from his hands and knees. Connie had never given him that look before. Her eyes were wide as moons, both hands clamped over her mouth in sheer horror. He sat back on his heels and surveyed the rest of the restaurant. Kevin’s friends were half out of their seats, ready to defend him, but shock had frozen them. The waiter, with a tray of food that looked like Connie’s and Steven’s orders, was like a statue. He looked down at Kevin. Though mostly unharmed, he was stunned and staring at the ceiling, still wheezing.

“Steven,” Connie whispered. She lowered her hands, clutching them against her chest.

“What the hell is wrong with you!” called one of Kevin’s friends. Suddenly they all rushed over, pushing Steven away as if he weighed no more than a ragdoll, slack jawed, and helping Kevin to his feet.

Connie didn’t move. Steven, numb, didn’t feel himself move. He stood, never taking his eyes off Connie. He took a step toward her, hand held out to her, but stopped when she flinched back.

“Steven,” she said again, and when she blinked, tears escaped her eyes.

This was the second time he’d made her cry in three days. He stupidly looked around the restaurant again, at the damage he’d caused, and nearly threw up. Fear had never been directed at him before, only at enemy gems. This wasn’t like him.

He turned back to Connie. She had cast her gaze away, trying not to make a sound as she sobbed.

She didn’t even want to look at him, Steven realized. His actions were so horrible that she could no longer face him.

Knowing that, he could no longer face her.

Time was caught in the clutches of pink. Everyone but Steven had slowed down to a crawl. He closed his eyes against oncoming tears and warded them off long enough to turn away and run.


End file.
